1st grade printmaking, it's how we roll

Printmaking with first grade: foam printing on top of Gelli Monoprints!

First grade: "Texas Wild Flowers" Styrofoam print on top of Gelli monoprints

I received a grant for 12 Gelli plates, which allowed 1/2 the class to print at time. Focus was on exploration, color theory and textures.

Some cool first grade monoprints

The rest of the class was given an alternative project. Each kid was able to print and do the alternate project. 

Monoprinting in action: after the surface is painted, kids added textures with found objects (bubble wrap, cardboard, cups and lids, popsicle sticks, stencils, rubber bands, yarn, anything that could add interesting textures)

So fun and so easy!

Student papers were kept on the chair behind them to avoid smudges.

First grade was studying Texas wildflowers, so we did an observational drawing of a Texas wildflower onto a foam plate (hello integration!). I had a TON of black ink, so that's what we used. Plus, it would show up on top of the colorful Gelli prints. 

SO COOL! And....this was actually the kid's idea: I had thought about using the Gelli prints as a frame, but they wanted to print on top. Many kids planned where the color would show through--very sophisticated planning! White paper was available for kids who did not want to print on their favorite monoprints. These would look cool with colored pencil added.